Buttons and Switchboards

The main switchboard

The main switchboard is the initial form the user sees when starting the database application. It provides a selection of buttons that will initiate the main activities the user might want to carry out. Typically, these buttons open other forms that are more specialized, run queries, etc. In short, the switchboard provides the user with a sense of the overall organization of the application.

Access has a wizard that will create switchboards for you, but I've never been particularly happy with the flexibility or functionality of these switchboards. Consequently, I'm not going to cover it in this tutorial. Rather, I prefer to build my opening screens from scratch. In the process, we'll learn to create buttons.

Since the main switchboard (and you might even give this name to the form) is just a form with buttons on it, you create the main switchboard in the same way you create any other form. The only difference is that you don’t base this form on some underlying table or query. This form might be easiest to create without the wizard.

Without choosing a table or query where the object's data comes from, click on OK
Because you chose no underlying source of data and are not using the wizard, you'll be looking at a bare-bones form:

Let's add some buttons.

Buttons

Be sure you are in design view in form (the one you are now creating).
Be sure the wizards are turned on.
From the toolbar, click on the “Command Button” icon.
With the mouse, click on your form where the button is to be located.
The wizard will then kick in to ask you a series of questions about what you want your button to do when it is clicked.

If you want the button to open a form, such as the one you have designed for data entry, use the “Form operations” category, and the “Open form” activity.
Access will then ask you to pick the form to be opened when your button is clicked:

Click on Next>
In the window, the wizard asks you to specify which rows of data will be displayed in the form. Many times you'll want all rows. For other forms, you may want just a subset, based on some criteria you can specify.

For our purposes, choose Open the form and show all the records. Then click Next >
Each button can have an icon or text to describe its function.

Click Next >
Finally, the wizard asks for a name to be used internally to refer to this button. This name will not appear on the form where the user can see it, but will be helpful to the application developer as they customize the button's properties.

When done, click on Finish
When you’ve come to the end of the wizard, feel free to resize or reposition, etc. the button. You may also select the button (so the handles are visible) and then double-click to bring up the properties list, where you can make other changes.

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